Chapter 1
London, January 2014
My name is Molly Cloud, and I’m going
to rob a museum.
Chapter 2
London, 1635
On the Thames,
ready to sail, a stout ship, colours long dissipated beneath the salt of many
seas. The tide moved the wood of it up and down, right and left, a gentle
sway, and no weather. Halfway up the masts, the crew listened for orders, all
the way out on the ropes, palms burned already from the rough hemp. A listless
sea, out there, down the river, waiting. Destination unknown.
Robert Lindsey
was a sprawl of a man. He filled space wherever he was, with his tall face, his
tall body, too long for normal beds or chairs. Today he was staring at the
wall, through his man servant, nothing in his mind but his secret dreams, the
ones that never reached his eyes. The swell of the river, harbinger of the
far-off tide, only magnified his power. He pushed past the silent servant,
ripped open the door of his cabin, onto the quarterdeck. ‘Let’s sail.’ He waved
his arms about him as he shouted. ‘And let’s be quick about it.’
The crew
jumped, sails rumpled and ruffled, dropped and squatted into the breeze. Ropes
fell into the water from the quay, and the ship loosed itself from its moorings
into the centre of the river. They were heading east, out into the open, bound
for somewhere south of this damp island. Lindsey hated the swamp that was
England, hated it almost as much as he hated the foreign countries he had to
visit. He was at his best when the horizon was nothing but water all around,
when all he could see was the ocean. He slammed the door closed, threw himself
onto his divan, reached out for the decanter of port and poured himself his
first glass of the day. He stared at his servant again.
‘You know we
have an additional passenger, don’t you?’ He lifted the glass of port to his
lips, felt the heat slide down into his belly. ‘His name is Finn.’
‘Yes.’ And I’ve seen him already, and he’s not a
man, you blind fool.
‘Be careful
with him. There’s more to him than meets the eye.’
The servant
inclined his head, managed to suppress a smile. Really?
‘I’m betting on
him having a load of jewels with him.’
‘What makes you
think that, sir?’
‘I can feel it
in my bones.’ Lindsey drained his glass. ‘And Job, I want you to go through all
his boxes. I didn’t save your red skin for nothing.’
‘Very well.
What am I looking for?’ You stole me from
my people.
‘Gold. Pearls.
Moonstones. Value. Something to make this trip even more fruitful for me.’ He
refilled his glass. ‘What are you waiting for? Go. Now.’
Job didn’t
move.
‘You think I
should look for the loot myself, don’t you?’
‘You’re already
thinking I won’t look hard enough.’
‘You’re much
too clever to be a slave. You know me too well.’
‘Only as a
slave knows his owner.’
‘You were
cheap.’
‘As you remind
me often.’
‘Don’t come
back until you’ve found what I want.’ The Earl of Lindsey waved his hand,
dismissed his slave. ‘I’m serious.’
Job, already
merging into the darkness, stopped and swivelled on his heel. ‘I am quite aware
of that, as always.’
Lindsey waved
again. ‘Enough.’
Job pushed his
way through the gasping door of the quarterdeck, his hands calm on the greasy
wood, out onto the soaking deck, rain and fog now sluicing along the grain, and
the sea swaying in time with the sails and the warren of masts. He shrugged,
wiped his face against the weather, strode across the straight-lined decking,
lifted the nearest hatch and jumped down into it, ignoring the ladder, bracing
himself as he landed, silent-soled, on the grey treads of their passenger’s
quarters. There, the gloom was held at bay by an orchestra of candles, flames
floating a distance away from their wicks, or at least that was how they seemed
to him.
‘I know you’re
there, whatever your name is.’ The voice was a soft, accented whisper. ‘Has he
sent you to find what treasures I have?’
‘Yes,’ Job
said, still in darkness. ‘But I know I won’t find anything.’
‘Why?’ The
voice came closer to his hiding place.
‘Because I’ve
guessed your secret.’
‘Come out of
the dark and tell me what you think my secret is.’
Job stepped
into the guttering light and looked at the stranger.
The quickening wind
pushed into the silence, levered the boat harder into the oncoming swell, the
room rolling and swaying, the table shuddering with the contradictory motions,
and yet neither of them sought anything to hold on to.
‘Come on, tell
me.’ The stranger’s cheekbones were flushed, as in a fever, and sharp by the
flickering light of the candles.
‘You’re not a
man,’ Job said. ‘How he didn’t see it, I don’t know.’
‘Are you going
to tell him?’ She didn’t seem surprised or afraid.
Job shook his
head. ‘It’s nothing to do with me.’
‘You’re not
going to coerce me or blackmail me, or take advantage of me to keep quiet?’
Job laughed.
‘Good,’ she
said. ‘Because if you did, I’d kill you.’
‘I don’t doubt
it.’
‘And you’re not
afraid now?’ Her eyes were a bright, pale blue, cutting through the gloom.
‘I see no
reason to be.’
She laughed,
lowered herself into one of the rickety skeleton chairs, pushed her legs under
the table and leaned back. ‘Come, sit.’
Job sat down
opposite her, took in her baggy clothes, ragged hat set upon short black hair.
‘He’ll notice before long. When you don’t grow a beard.’
‘I’m going to
be ill for the whole voyage. They’ll all think I’m dying, and you’ll be the
only one brave enough to tend to me.’
‘You think that
will work?’
She lay her
long-fingered hands on the table. ‘I don’t see why not. Sailors are
superstitious.’
‘He’s not a
sailor. He only does this for the money.’
‘What’s your
name?’
‘He calls me
Job.’
‘Ah,’ she said.
‘Interesting. I’d have expected you to be black not red with that name.’
‘It’s not my
real name.’
‘I’d gathered
that. You’re not very good at hiding things. Not from me, anyway.’ She wiped
something from her face, left a smudge of dirt on her cheek instead. ‘Are you
going to tell me your real name?’
‘Not now.’ He
leaned forward. ‘And you, what’s your real name?’
‘It’s not that
far away from what Lindsey thinks I’m called. I’m Fien.’ The way she pronounced
it made him think of light breezes in the heat, of whispered sounds across
savannahs, of summer, of light and shade and dew. ‘I’m from the Low Countries.’
‘And what are
you doing here? Why dress up as a man? When he finds out what you are, he’ll
throw you overboard.’ Job wiped his face. He was sweating although it wasn’t
warm.
‘Do we trust
each other yet?’ She seemed impervious to fear.
‘I think so.’
‘Shake on it?’
She reached her right hand out across the table.
Job nodded.
They shook
hands, the storm not far away now, held each other’s gaze for one second too
long, until, by mutual consent, it seemed, they looked down at the table again.
‘It’s too
dangerous to tell you what I’m doing. That way you have nothing to give away.’
She wiped her nose. ‘The best thing for you to do is to look through all those
chests and tell him you found nothing.’
‘What if I do
find something?’
‘You won’t.’
‘What are you?’
‘A slave like
you,’ she said.
‘Don’t make fun
of me.’
‘I’m not. I am
a slave, to revenge and justice.’
‘So you do
still have a way to escape if you really want to. You have a choice.’
‘And you
don’t?’
‘His power
reaches further than I can run or swim.’
‘Even when
you’re away from England?’
‘Even then.’
‘What if I buy
you and set you free?’
‘He wouldn’t
allow it.’
‘You’re too
valuable to him, you mean?’
‘I suppose so.’
Fien ran her
hands, palms down, across the table smooth with age and touch and salt, tracing
the lines in the wood with sharp nails. ‘Why do you mean so much to him?’
‘I’m a shadow,’
Job said. ‘No-one sees me.’
‘So you spy for
him.’ She looked at him, the muscles in his arms, the tattoos on his hands.
‘And worse.’
‘I try to
mitigate his malice.’
‘And he hasn’t
noticed yet?’
Job raised his
eyebrows. ‘There have been some men he wanted dead whom I wanted dead, too.’
‘So you killed
them.’
One sharp, curt
nod.
‘So why won’t
you do what he tells you to this time?’
‘You intrigue
me. And, as you say, you have none of what he wants.’
‘Won’t he get
suspicious if you go back and tell him you found nothing?’
Job shrugged.
‘He would never do his own dirty work. And he’ll find another way to profit.’
‘And you, why
won’t you try to flee? You can’t be afraid of him.’
He looked at
her again, and again for longer than he should have. ‘I suppose I feel I can do
more good pretending to serve him and being merciful when I can get away with
it rather than fighting him.’
‘Come with me,’
Fien said. ‘When we get to the end of this journey, come with me, and be my friend,
not my slave nor my assassin.’
Chapter 3
Those weeks at sea weighed heavily on Job, and sleep was
rare. When he was not running the errands his master gave him, when he was not
pretending to rummage still amongst Fien’s empty boxes, he could be found
standing in the stern of the vessel, at the dead of night, nose in the air,
trying for the scent of the land he had been stolen from, the scent of which
her name had reminded him. And when those nights were without cloud, he sat in
the bow, a rough blanket over his shivering legs, his eyes on the waves coming
towards them, when his real name would carry from the land of his birth across
the oceans and cut into his face. It was at these moments he wished he could
grab one of the galley knives and push it into Lindsey’s throat as he slept,
and free himself.
He heard, like
all the others, Fien’s heavy footsteps in her cabin, kept his secret and hers
wrapped closely inside him, reported to Lindsey each day that the passenger’s
illness seemed no better, that slight men do not tread heavily when they are
well, that he thought death could not be far. He found that lying for her came
even more easily to him than any lying he had done before, and that he rejoiced
in telling untruths for her. And the excitement of it almost pushed away the
homesickness he felt whenever he was at sea, made him even more determined to
find his way, once again, to freedom, something he hadn’t known for more than
ten years.
Fien, for her
part, never left her cabin, not even to fulfil her most basic needs. She left
her meagre waste and some blood in a covered leather bucket in a hidden corner
of the room, and waited until after dark to empty it out of the one narrow,
stained window she had. When Job offered to do it for her she refused. And
during the day she continued to wear her disguise, and sweated into the rough
sheets that covered her up to her neck.
One night, a
fierce storm blew up, shook the ship to its keel, rattled across the decks so violently
the men had to tie themselves to the realings not to be swept away. Job, under
the howling sky, pulled himself into Fien’s cabin, and let himself gingerly
down the ladder as everything around him danced in maddening circles. She was sitting
at the table, one hand holding onto the candle, the other clasping a book.
‘You can read
in weather like this?’ Job said.
‘I’m not a
little girl afraid of thunder and lightning.’
‘Aren’t you
afraid of sinking?’
She laughed.
‘If we’re going to sink we’re going to sink and there’s nothing I can do about
it. And nor can you.’
Job sat down
next to her, looked at the book she was reading. ‘You’re learning Persian?’
‘Reminding
myself of Persian,’ she said. ‘It’s not an easy language to learn.’
‘It took me an
age.’
She raised an
eyebrow. ‘Why would you learn Persian?’
‘I might ask
you the same.’
‘My father
taught me. He travelled a lot.’
‘Did you travel
with him?’
‘Sometimes.’
She closed the book and let it drop onto the swaying table. ‘And you?’
‘Curiosity. The
need to drag me away from feeling sorry for myself for being his slave. And because the first trip he
took me on was to Persia.’
‘Does he know
you speak it?’
Job shook his
head. ‘No. And I don’t want him to. It means I can find out things he can’t.’
‘And impress
him with them? And be even more precious to him?’
‘You’re too
perceptive.’
‘Men are very
predictable.’ She grabbed at the book as the ship lurched, and caught it with
one hand just as it tumbled off the table’s edge.
‘And women
aren’t?’
‘We’re not
allowed to be predictable or unpredictable. We’re just expected to be in our
place.’ She slammed the book back onto the table. ‘That’s not the way it should
be.’
‘In my tribe,
most of the women came hunting with us.’
Fien smiled.
‘You must miss that.’
‘I try not to.’
‘Then you can
understand how I feel.’
Job nodded.
‘That’s why
you’re doing all this.’ She tried to reach across the table and take his hand,
but he pulled it away.
‘Slowly,’ he
said.
‘What are you
afraid of?’
‘Everything.’
‘I’m sorry.’
She pulled her hand back, let it drop into her lap. ‘I suppose it doesn’t help
that I’m white.’
It was Job’s
turn to laugh. ‘That’s what he would like to think. He keeps telling me that
species shouldn’t interbreed, and that includes people of different colours.’
‘That’s what
most people think.’
‘You, too?’
‘No,’ she said.
‘That’s just the accepted way of thinking. It will change, some time. Some time
soon, I hope.’ She looked at him through the smoke of the guttering candle.
‘Because I want to be free, too. I don’t want to be a woman, I want to be a
person.’
Job rubbed his
hands together, embarrassed at how forthright she was. ‘It’s very difficult.
Women are … very difficult. Here, in this white world.’
The wind began
to subside, the ship no longer feeling out of control.
‘The storm’s
going,’ she said. ‘You’d better get back to your master.’
‘He’s probably
out of his mind on drink by now.’
‘That’s when
he’s most likely to look for you.’
Job stood up.
‘You’re right, of course.’
She was next to
him now, just about the same height as him. She put her arms around him before
he could even react. ‘Thank you.’
He tried to
pull back against his instincts, and managed only to awkwardly return a
half-hug. ‘I’ve done nothing.’
‘More than you
know. … See you tomorrow.’
Job turned and
jumped up the ladder, his heart lighter than he could remember it ever being.
The days grew longer and warmer, and then hot. In his cabin
upstairs, suffocating in his luxury, Lindsey fidgeted and sprawled, and fretted
about the promises he had made to the king, and to Buckingham.
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